The Astros just won one of the craziest World Series games in MLB history

HOUSTON — It took five hours and 17 minutes for the Astros to beat the Dodgers in Game 5 of the World Series. The game included 14 pitchers who combined to throw 417 pitches. There were 28 hits, seven homers, and 25 total runs scored.

And none of those numbers even come close to capturing the drama, the intensity, or the full-blown, jaw-dropping weirdness of the Astros’ 13-12, walkoff, 10-inning win.

“I’m kind of at a loss for words for how to describe it,” said Astros pitcher Collin McHugh. “I’ve seen a lot of baseball in my life, and the games I’ve seen just this series have been unlike anything I’ve ever seen.”

“That was by far the craziest game I’ve ever been a part of,” said Dodgers first baseman Cody Bellinger. “Probably that I will ever be a part of.”

(Matthew Emmons/USA TODAY Sports)

What started as a presumptive pitching duel between Clayton Kershaw and Dallas Keuchel swiftly devolved into something much, much different as both starters struggled in the early innings. By the end of the fifth inning, both starters were gone and 14 runs were on the board with the clubs locked in a 7-7 tie.

In the top of the seventh, George Springer — the centerfielder who has starred for the Astros on both sides of the ball in the series — made a crucial mistake on Bellinger’s sinking liner, diving toward a hit he had no real chance of catching, allowing it to get past him and all the way to the wall and giving Enrique Hernandez time to race around the bases from first to score the go-ahead run.

“I thought I could make a play,” he said. “I didn’t. It’s a very lonely feeling to know that I made a bad decision — I’ll own it, I should’ve stopped it.”

Springer led off the bottom of the inning and smashed the first pitch he saw over Minute Maid Park’s left-field train tracks for a 448-foot homer.

“To go from that low, to that high, is very, very emotional,” he said. “I don’t really know how to describe it.”

Springer’s homer kicked off a rally that didn’t end before the Astros plated three more runs — two of them on a homer by Carlos Correa — to take an 11-8 lead.

(Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)

“These games are hard on me,” Correa said. “I feel like I’m going to have a heart attack out there every single time.”

The Dodgers cut their deficit to two runs on a pair of doubles in the top of the eighth, but the Astros got the run back on a Brian McCann homer in the bottom of the inning.

Yasiel Puig’s two-run homer in the top of the ninth again drew Los Angeles close, but Astros reliever Chris Devenski had the Dodgers down to their final strike when Chris Taylor singled up the middle to tie the game. Kenley Jansen worked around a Yuli Gurriel double in the bottom of the inning to send the game into extras.

Jansen’s the best relief pitcher in this series, and arguably the best relief pitcher in the world. He swiftly retired the first two batters in the bottom of the 10th. But with two outs in the inning, Houston’s vaunted offense got to Jansen for the second time this series.

First, Jansen’s full-count cutter caught McCann on the hand to put the winning run on first. Next, George Springer took a 3-1 pitch just inches above the top of the strike zone to draw a walk and advance McCann to second, where he was replaced by pinch-runner Derek Fisher. Then, finally, after 10 wild and emotional innings, Alex Bregman swatted the first pitch he saw from Jansen into left field to drive in Fisher from second and win the game.

(Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

“Springer had a huge at-bat and walked right before me,” Bregman said. “And I took one more swing on the on-deck circle, and I looked to Correa. Correa said, ‘It’s your time.'”

And so it was.

“When you look around you and you see the smiles on your teammates’ face, it makes everything worth it,” the 23-year-old Bregman said. “It makes every weight that you lifted in the offseason, every swing that you took in the cage. When you feel like you came through for your team, and you see the joy on their faces, there’s nothing like it.”

The smoke still lingers in Minute Maid Park from the Astros’ pyrotechnic postgame celebration, but the baseball here is done for the season, the stadium’s various nooks and crannies retired for 2017 by the baseballs that smashed off them and over them all night on Sunday. The clubs travel back to Los Angeles now for Game 6 on Tuesday, giving them a day off to process all that just happened.

“I haven’t seen anything like that, ever,” Keuchel said. “The highs, the lows, the in-betweens, it was all there.”

The Astros just won one of the craziest World Series games in MLB history

Alex Bregman’s walk-off hit in the 10th capped a wild night of baseball.

I found this on FTW and wanted to share:
%link%
For more great sports stories ...
*visit For The Win: https://www.ftw.usatoday.com
*follow @ForTheWin: https://www.twitter.com/forthewin
*like FTW on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/usatodayftw